William Collins Vietnam: An Epic History of a Tragic War Hastings Max

A companion volume to his bestselling 'Armageddon', Max Hastings' account of the battle for Japan is a masterful military history • Featuring the most remarkable cast of commanders the world has ever seen, the dramatic battle for Japan of 1944-45 was acted out across the vast stage of Asia: Imphal and Kohima, Leyte Gulf and Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the Soviet assault on Manchuria • In this gripping narrative, Max Hastings weaves together the complex strands of an epic war, exploring the military tactics behind some of the most triumphant and most horrific scenes of the twentieth century. The result is a masterpiece that balances the story of command decisions, rivalries and follies with the experiences of soldiers, sailors and airmen of all sides as only Max Hastings can

Coal is the commodity that made Britain. Dirty and polluting though it is, this black rock has acted as a midwife to genius. It drove industry, religion, politics, empire and trade. It powered the industrial revolution, turned Britain into the first urban nation and is the industry that made almost all others possible • In this brilliant social history, Jeremy Paxman tells the story of coal mining in England, Scotland and Wales from Roman times, through the birth of steam power to war, nationalisation, pea-souper smogs, industrial strife and the picket lines of the Miner’s Strike • Written in the captivating style of his bestselling book The English, Paxman ranges widely across Britain to explore stories of engineers and inventors, entrepreneurs and industrialists – but whilst coal inevitably helped the rich become richer, the story told by Black Gold is first and foremost a history of the working miners – the men, women and often children who toiled in appalling conditions down in the mines; the villages that were thrown up around the pit-head

Уголь - это товар, который создал Британию. Каким бы грязным и загрязняющим окружающую среду ни был этот черный камень, он стал повивальной бабкой гения. Это двигало промышленностью, религией, политикой, империей и торговлей. Она привела к промышленной революции, превратила Британию в первую городскую нацию и является отраслью, которая сделала возможными почти все остальные • В этой блестящей социальной истории Джереми Паксман рассказывает историю добычи угля в Англии, Шотландии и Уэльсе со времен Римской империи, от зарождения паровой энергетики до войны, национализации, смога от горохового супа, промышленных беспорядков и пикетов шахтерской забастовки • Написанный в увлекательном стиле своего бестселлера The English, Паксман путешествует по всей Британии, исследуя истории инженеров и изобретателей, предпринимателей и промышленников – но в то время как уголь неизбежно помогал богатым становиться еще богаче

Robin Lane Fox's The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome is a comprehensive and enthralling introduction to Ancient civilization • The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome dominated the world for centuries and continue to intrigue and enlighten us with their inventions, whether philosophy, politics, theatre, athletics, celebrity, science or the pleasures of horse racing. Robin Lane Fox's spellbinding history, spans almost a thousand years of change from the foundation of the world's first democracy in Athens to the Roman Republic and the Empire under Hadrian • Bringing great figures such as Homer, Socrates, Cicero, Alexander, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Augustus and the first Christian martyrs to life, exploring freedom, justice and luxury, this wonderfully exciting tour brings the turbulent histories of Greece and Rome together in a masterly study

No building has been more intimately involved in the story of Britain than the Tower of London - a mighty, brooding stronghold in the very heart of the capital. This title presents the story of the Tower of London as an ancient structure and as a living symbol of the nation

In horse racing greatness is defined by speed. Being the second fastest counts for little. You have to win. And win. And keep winning until every challenger of your generation is put to the sword. Of the twelve horses lined up on Newmarket Heath that 2011 day, one would do just that. And more. To become the greatest racehorse that has ever lived • Frankel was born on 11 February 2008, with four white socks and a blaze, from impressive equine lines on both his parents' sides. Simon Cooper revisits the whole of the horse's life, giving readers an inside tour of the calm oasis that is life a stud farm, where a foal will live with his mother for the first year of his life. Next, the atmosphere of heady possibility that marks the early days of training

9.07 a.m., April 12, 1961. A top-secret rocket site in the USSR. A young Russian sits inside a tiny capsule on top of the Soviet Union’s most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile – originally designed to carry a nuclear warhead – and blasts into the skies. His name is Yuri Gagarin and he is about to make history • Travelling at almost 18,000 miles per hour – ten times faster than a rifle bullet – Gagarin circles the globe in just 106 minutes. While his launch begins in total secrecy, within hours of his landing he has become a world celebrity – the first human to leave the planet • Beyond tells the thrilling story behind that epic flight on its sixtieth anniversary. It happened at the height of the Cold War as the US and USSR confronted each other across an Iron Curtain

A luminous journey through a thousand years of folklore and English history • Once upon a time in a Hertfordshire field, an ancient yew tree hid a dragon hunted by a giant named Piers Shonks. Today, the dragon and its slayer are the survivors of an 800-year battle between rural legend and national record, storytellers and sceptics • In this brilliant and lyrical history, Christopher Hadley journeys from churches to tombs to manuscript margins, to explore history, memory and legend, and the magical spaces where all three meet

In the tradition of ‘Agent Zigzag’ comes a breathtaking biography of WWII’s ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the best spy thrillers. This celebrates unsung hero Robert de La Rochefoucauld, an aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur, and his exploits as a British Special Operations Executive-trained resistant • When the Nazis invaded France during the Second World War and imprisoned his father, Robert de La Rochefoucauld – a scion of one of the oldest aristocratic families in France – escaped to England and trained in the dark arts of anarchy and combat. Under the guidance of SOE spies, he learned to crack safes, plant bombs and kill enemies with his bare hands • Then, back in France, he organised Resistance cells, killed Nazi officers and interfered with German missions

‘Hillbilly Elegy’ is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis – that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of the United States that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck • The Vance family story begins hopefully in post-war America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility

"Путешествие к центру Земли" - один из первых научно-фантастических романов Жюля Верна, рассказывающий о дерзком и опасном путешествии в недра Земли через жерло вулкана • Случайно выпавший из книги ветхий клочок пергамента стал отправной точкой небывалой экспедиции профессора Отто Лиденброка и его племянника Акселя. Стремление пройти по следам знаменитого алхимика Арне Сакнуссема, чтобы повторить его подвиг - достигнуть центра Земли, - оборачивается для путешественников проверкой на мужество, стойкость и взаимную поддержку • Книга на английском языке • In Verne's science-fiction classic, Professor Lidenbrock chances upon an ancient manuscript and pledges to solve the mysterious coded message that lies within it. Eventually he deciphers the story - that of an Icelandic explorer who travels to the centre of the earth, finding his way there via a volcano

Для многих слово "викинг" вызывает ассоциации с насилием. Но грабежи, изнасилования и мародерство - это еще не вся история. В этой новой повествовательной истории Томас Уильямс, куратор выставки Британского музея "Викинги: жизнь и легенда", переосмысливает историю викингов. Сочетая новые научные исследования с изучением физических останков и ландшафтов, которые создавали викинги и по которым они ходили, эта книга предлагает жизненно важное воспоминание о забытом мире, его влиянии на британский язык, литературу, топонимику и фольклор, его отголосках в более поздней истории и его значении для современности • Книга на английском языке • To many, the word 'Viking' invites visions of violence. But plunder, rape and pillage do not tell the full story